Untitled Drunk Dean fic
by ever-dimming-spn
Summary: Gen, post-hell, post-Alastair. Dean has been back a while, but that doesn't mean those years don't catch up with him sometimes. Sam and Cas deal as best they can. Written for a friend who asked for a falling-down-drunk Dean being cared for by protective!Sam, and/or a certain dynamic with Cas. Alcohol, elements of ptsd, wings. *Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to its creators, obvy.


The door swings open, banging loudly against the motel room's inner wall. Sam staggers in, half-carrying his brother. The angel stares up at them from his place on the TV chair, frowning at the vapors of alcohol that hit him as Sam knees the door closed.

"I assume you found Dean at the nearest bar."

Sam spares him a quick glance of the _thank you Captain Obvious_ variety, but says only, "little help here, Cas."

Castiel jumps up, eyes widening. "Right. Sorry." He nearly knocks over a chair getting to the door, but neither of them pays it any mind. Cas frowns again as he takes Dean's chin and lifts his head up, surveying the man's slack face.

"He is not unconscious, but -"

Sam sighs. "Yeah, Cas. He's drunk. Very very drunk."

"And miserable," the angel adds.

"Yeah. And miserable. Hence the excessive drinking."

"Oh."

Cas is just about to inquire how a hangover might aid in combating misery when Sam says, "hey, hey - - he's slipping. Shit, Cas, grab him before he goes down."

Castiel slides his arm around Dean's waist, keeping the swaying man somewhat upright. Dean's head falls on the angel's shoulder.

"Umnn- mahh - - "

"Yes," Sam says helpfully, "I know." He shrugs out of his jacket, dropping it on the floor, and wipes the sweat off his brow.

He nods at Cas. "I got him."

The angel shifts Dean's limp weight so that he is leaning on his brother, taking a step back. Sam lets out a small, sympathetic chuckle as Dean protests the move with the kind of whine you'd expect from someone having their pillow stolen from them in the middle of the night.

"You're not doing so great, are you. Come on, let's get you settled, okay?"

Dean makes another unintelligible sound that probably means _I don't know leave me alone_ , but doesn't resist as the taller man half-drags, half-walks him over to one of the beds.

Sam bends his legs so that Dean lists, then drops down onto the thin mattress.

"There you go. Good. Not even gonna try to get your boots off, you lush. I'm thinking you're gonna need them at around 3 AM, when you start heading for the bathroom."

Cas eyes Sam suspiciously as he, nevertheless, places a wastebasket next to the bed, along with a glass of water and two white pills. "You said - -"

"Hush, Cas." Sam isn't looking at the angel; he's watching his brother, whose breathing is getting increasingly raspy.

"Hey. What's going on? You about to be sick?"

Dean rubs his face against the sheet, eyes closed.

"Nah - - Sammy. Can't. I can't."

Sam's voice sounds suddenly much smaller as he says, "can't what?"

Dean doesn't answer, curling a loose fist around a piece of blanket.

"Dean, hey. You can't what?"

Cas finds himself going stone still as Dean blinks hazily up at his brother, eyes bloodshot and unfocused.

"I c- - I can't do, do th- this anymore. Lemme go. I'm done, Sammy. O - - okay? Imma go, because, because - - "

Sam's own breath stutters as he waits. The room is silent, a distant siren the only interruption as the man in the bed struggles to find the words that elude him in coherence. Some things Dean can never say sober. All three of them know this by now, even Castiel.

Sam finally speaks, softly this time, and Cas thinks this might be what John Winchester sounded like before he met his demons.

"I'm here. Talk to me. Why do you want to go?"

Dean closes his eyes, pawing at his mouth like he's hoping to brush away whatever is making speech so hard.

"I, I gotta go b- because he was right. He - - he knew."

Castiel can see Sam's shoulders tense up from across the room.

When Sam speaks this time, his voice is deadly.

"He didn't."

Dean nods into the pillow, his hair casting strange, thorny shadows around his head. "He knew I was no good. He told me if - - If I ever got out, I'd be - - I'd be what gets y- you killed." He inhales, deep and pained. "So I gotta go."

Sam leans over, rests a hand on his brother's face, bruised and fragile in the blue light from the sole window.

"Listen to me. That bastard didn't know shit. His specialty was torture, remember? He was just messing with you."

He pulls the bed cover over Dean and slides down to sit on the carpet, leaning his head back on the bed frame like he's making his peace with a long night. He looks up at Castiel.

"When he gets like this, I kind of wish I could dredge Alastair up just to kill him all over again."

Castiel nods wordlessly. He is familiar with the sentiment.

Sam sighs, gestures vaguely at the TV chair. "Maybe you sh - - "

The sound that comes from the bed makes them both freeze in their tracks. It's a kind of gasping that has nothing to do with lack of air.

Dean is crying.

Castiel stares, incredulous. He's seen Dean Winchester cry before - that's to be expected when keeping watch on him for over a year - but this is somehow more disturbing. Dean hates crying; he knows this not just from watching him wipe angrily at his eyes in bathroom stalls and alone in the Impala, but also from studying the energy around him when he does. Humans may not have halos, but they do carry a certain charge with them, something visible to an angel like a faint outline, and mostly ignored. Dean's energy crackles like static on his periphery when he finds himself overcome with grief; Castiel suspects it's fear, not anger, that causes the shift.

But there's none of that now. Dean just lies there, one arm hanging limply off the mattress, his eyes closed like he's asleep, leaking tears onto the pillow. He doesn't seem to notice them, too far gone to care. It might be this fact - that Dean is crying in someone else's presence and doesn't remember to worry about it - that alarms the angel most. The pain and exhaustion etched on Dean's features are enough to make Cas look hastily away, searching the room for something, ANYTHING else to focus on because he thinks he can feel Jimmy Novak's heart ripping in his chest.

Sam reaches over and squeezes his brother's shoulder, his own eyes brimming. But his voice is steady as he says, "it's okay. It's okay, Dean. You're good. He's gone."

Dean's breathing grows harsher, more labored, at the sound of the words. He tries to say something, fails, tries again.

"S - - s - - "

"Nothing to be sorry about," says Sam, and Castiel watches as his fingers dig into the threadbare carpet with a violence that is entirely absent from his voice. "Not your fault."

Dean remains inconsolable, the pillow wet beneath his cheek, his eyes opening to watch Castiel where he sits. The angel isn't sure Dean is actually seeing him, but finds himself unable to ignore the two distress beacons burning at him miserably from across the room; from the sound Sam makes, he can't take it either.

Castiel approaches the bed, sits down carefully on the covers by Dean's folded knees. The fact that he isn't shooed away only serves to further alarm him, a reminder of just how badly broken his usually-guarded, pigheaded human is.

He absentmindedly notes that Sam is so tall, even sitting on the floor by the low bed he is still almost the same height as himself. The younger brother has released Dean's shoulder to take his hand, holding on to the lax fingers as if he's the one drowning. Cas doesn't mean to eavesdrop, but he still hears the words _I don't know_ repeating in Sam's mind, a chorus to Dean's _I can't I can't I can't_. He flinches at the phrase thrashing around inside Dean's skull like an injured bird, desperately wants to reach in and mute the noise.

Sam looks up at him as if he can hear him, too.

"Cas. Can you help him? Please? Just for a little while."

Castiel says nothing. He watches Sam's face change as the shadow of his wings flickers against the wall, watches as he turns to look at his brother.

Dean takes one last deep, pained breath, then relaxes against the cocoon of dark feathers that wraps itself around him. His eyelids flutter, then slide closed, his hold on consciousness fading along with the grip of torment. Castiel hears the noise of hell dying down inside the wounded mind nestled in his wings, can hear a sigh of _thank you,_ though he isn't sure from which Winchester it emanates.

When he finally unwraps his wings from around the sleeping man, it's nearly morning. In the grey light that filters in through the dusty window, Dean's face is smoothed out, temporarily, miraculously free of pain. Sam is asleep at his feet.

Castiel folds his wings and sits in silence, keeping watch.


End file.
